


The Golden Goose

by FactorialRabbits



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Female Byleth, also featuring, crack. its all crack, jeralt duke fraldarius and the blue lions!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:01:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25574737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FactorialRabbits/pseuds/FactorialRabbits
Summary: A retelling of the tale of the golden goose, featuring the sad Prince Dimitri, Byleth the woodsman's daughter, the assorted Blue Lions, and a golden goose conspiring to cheer people up.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	The Golden Goose

**Author's Note:**

> This piece forms part of the Lovable Bonds zine, which was released for free online today. It can be found @bondsfanzine on twitter, I can't manage links on ao3 >.<
> 
> I did also write another piece, which I will save to upload another day. As I also made matching art for that one and ow.

A long time ago, in a land far far away, there was a handsome prince. Now this prince, while very beautiful, had lost his parents at a very young age. While his uncle served as regent, his father's best friend, Duke Fraldarius, looked after the prince. While the Prince had many friends, the children of various Lords of the Land, he could not smile or laugh. The death of his parents had stolen his joy away, and so Duke Fraldarius, with consent of the King Regent, issued a decree; whomever could make the prince laugh would have his hand in marriage.

For many years people tried - everyone wanted their daughter to be a princess, after all - and yet nobody had yet succeeded. Even his closest friends could not even make him smile. How, then, would anyone ever make the young prince laugh?

It seemed an impossible challenge and, eventually, people stopped trying...

* * *

Some years after the challenge was issued, a young lady by the name of Byleth Eisner lived with her father deep in the woods.

Each day her father would ask her to help him with something, and each day she would do exactly that.

"Kiddo," her father asked of her. "Can you go collect some wood?"

Silently, she nodded and bowed to him, and left their home.

Rather than cutting the trees, she wandered her forest home, looking for fallen branches. Some were too wet, and some were too mossy, and then some just smelt bad when set on fire. Eventually, she had gathered up enough, and turned to head home.

And then she heard an old man coughing.

Confused, she turned to look at him; why was there an old man in the woods?

"Young lady," he crooned. "Have you any water?"

Byleth considered this for a moment, knowing she should be wary of strange old men in the forest. He coughed again, and it sounded very sore; she unhooked the water skin she carried by habit, and passed it to the man.

He drank, and then he handed back the skin. Hooking it back onto her belt, she did not see him move; when she looked up again, the man was holding a golden goose.

"Here," he said. "A thank you."

Having no idea what to do with a goose, let alone one whose feathers were made of gold, Byleth nonetheless accepted it. She tucked it under the arm not carrying the wood, and made her way home.

What else could she possibly have done? Refused?

"Byleth?" Her father asked her as she returned, staring at the golden goose. "What is that?"

She cocked her head to the side, blinking a few times, face still as ever blank, "a goose."

"I can see that," he sighed. "But why is there a goose here?"

Byleth looked at the goose under her arm, nestled happily there as it was, then back at her father. It seemed rather obvious to her that she had carried it here. Surely he could work that out himself?

"Are you going to take the goose back outside?" he suggested, eyeing it suspiciously.

She shook her head violently, though her face still made no expression; the goose was a gift! She could not merely release it!

Her father was quiet for a long time, looking between his daughter and the golden goose under her arm. It took a bit of staring at him on Byleth's part, but eventually he relented. "Alright. Just don't let it make a mess."

Content that the goose was not going to be left out in the cold, Byleth put it down, and started putting away the wood.

To everyone's surprise - it was a goose, and geese are the spawn of hell - the golden goose strutted happily after her.

* * *

A few weeks later, Byleth's father sends her to the city to trade for supplies. With the goods packed and her cart ready, she waved farewell to her father and their hut, and set off.

The road to the capital is uneventful, and while her morning's trading is without problem, Byleth is not immune to the odd looks the goose sat beside her receives. It is a very pretty goose, she supposes, of course people were looking!

Trouble comes when she enters an inn for lunch - selling the goose's beautiful feathers has earnt a prettier penny than their mushrooms usually do, and this inn do a very good saghert and cream. The goose does, of course, follow her. She thinks nothing of it, letting the goose do as it will, as she makes an order.

And then she turns, and sees a young man in fancy clothing, with bright red hair, peering down at her goose.

"Ah, lovely lady!" he winks at her. "Is this your goose? He is fine, is he not? But not nearly as fine as you."

She nods to him: yes, it is her goose. The goose has chosen her.

Without asking permission, the man leans down to pet the goose. Except... When he goes to pull his hand away, it stays there. Byleth watches him trying to tug his hand away, not really sure what his problem is.

"Lady! What is with this goose?!" he yells, drawing the attention of some other finely-dressed patrons. "Help me!"

Byleth decides to humour him, reaching down to tug his hand.

Huh. It really was stuck.

Fascinating.

She pats the goose herself, finding that her hand comes away just fine. Upon angry questioning, she just shrugs. No, she does not have any idea what is going on.

The red-haired noble's friends come over, a blond woman storming in front.

"Sylvain!" she yells, grabbing his shoulders and trying to pull him away. "What have you done this time!? Must I do everything for you?!"

It is only a little bit later that the lady realises that her hands are now stuck to his shoulders, and she yells at him even louder. A giant of a man, still well dressed though less so than the others, comes over with a sigh. He moves to seperate them, only to find himself stuck too.

Byleth thinks it all rather silly that they kept grabbing on when clearly something was wrong - probably that her goose is upset, looking at the poor thing. She reaches over to pet it, her hand coming away fine, and feeds it some seed.

This fails to free the nobles and their esteemed servant from the attachment, however. The final member of their group, the youngest from the looks of things, tries to tug the lady's sleeve.

"Ma'am," Sylvain the redhead tries again. "Please free us."

"Goose did it," Byleth points to the goose, shaking her head as she does. "She will have to undo it."

There is a lot of discussion after that, before the group eventually settle on trying to find the court mage, and asking her to undo the curse that Byleth is pretty sure could be fixed if Sylvain the redhead just apologised to her goose. But he thought that was silly.

By the time the conversation is over, the last boy is in tears. Byleth quickly denotes him crybaby, though it seems a little unfair. It is not exactly his fault this is all wrong, and nothing is right.

And so they all head outside, off to find the court mage to save them from the golden goose. Byleth tags along. Mostly because otherwise the goose refuses to move, but also out of a bit of curiosity; there's a lot of rumours about the court, and even Byleth and her father have heard them.

In the street, they pass a bakery. The nobles and servant attached to the goose surely know him well, for Sylvain the redhead calls him over, and asks for help.

Byleth does not even try to stop him as he gets stuck too; it's all getting rather silly, and funny, and she is pretty sure it would be an easy fix if they would just be polite.

The next person they meet are two people; a priestess in training and a researcher from the magic academy. They are chatting amongst themselves, happily giggling away, but come over when they notice the commotion.

"Mercedes!" Sylvain calls. "Oh brave and beautiful Mercedes; please come help us! Will a prayer from such a fine woman not free us from this curse?"

"Curse?" the priestess looks horrified. "Of course I'll try!"

She says some prayers and casts some spells, and nothing works. Crybaby, who had stopped crying when they went outside, turning to angry snarling instead, burst into tears again.

"It's all right, Felix," the priestess said, reaching out to crybaby. "I'm sure we'll work it out."

Before anyone can stop her, she moves to brush her hand over crybaby's hair. And promptly gets stuck there.

"Oh dear," she frowns. "Annie? Do you have any ideas?"

Her companion pulls a face, then steps forward to examine things, "well, if is a curse prayers don't solve-"

Whatever she was about to say is lost as she trips over the pavement and slams face-first into the priestess' back.

Byleth thinks it rather unfortunate that the young mage gets her face stuck to her friend's back, but there's not a lot to be done.

With directions from the Lady, she continues to lead the goose and its captives towards the castle.

* * *

Now, it just so happens that, on this day, Prince Dimitri's tutor was sick. As such, he had been left some books to read. He had taken those books to his favourite window seat where he was sat, not reading them, but instead gazing over the city that would one day be his. The weight of his responsibility sat heavily on his shoulders, one he was born to bear with grace and poise. He reflected on it, instead of his books, unaware of Duke Rodrigue watching him from across the library.

In the street below, there seemed to be a commotion, one which only grew in strangeness as he looked on.

Ingrid and Sylvain were arguing, loudly enough to hear their voices from the palace library, but not so loud as that he could hear their words. That, in itself, was not unusual. Neither was Dedue trying to break up their fighting, nor Felix, the younger son of Duke Fraldarius sobbing beside them. Felix was clinging to Ingrid's arm, while Dedue seemed to be trying to remove her other arm from Sylvain. Sylvain, in turn, was crawling on the floor. Or, rather, near crawling - one hand was grabbing a golden goose, which was quite happily waddling along the road.

This in itself, while strange, was not unusual behavior for the Prince's friends.

More strange was the flour-dusted baker's son, one hand on Sylvain's and the other also on the goose, looking panicked. A priestess seemed almost like she was patting Felix's head and shoulder, while a red-headed girl - Annette, Baron Dominic's niece, if he were not mistaken - was hugging the priestess around the waist and had her face buried into her back, almost as though she had tripped into her.

This, while much stranger, was also not entirely out of the ordinary.

The strangest thing was the young woman, about his own age, in peasant's clothing stood before them all. Her expression completely deadpan in the face of the argument and wailing nobles and townsfolk before her, she watched them. Sylvain turned to try and beg her for something, probably a date knowing his friend. The woman just looked at him, without even an expression, then looked away and said something to the priestess and Annette. The priestess gave her a serene smile, but there still seemed to be trouble.

Curious, and concerned, Prince Dimitri stepped down from his window seat, and tucked the books back on the shelf. He made his way outside, still unaware of the fact that Duke Fraldarius was following him.

Out on the street, he could hear the loud voices, though one meshed over the other.

"Please lady!" he finally managed to pick out Sylvain's. "Please help!"

She looked him dead in the eye, squinted a little, and turned on her heel. She took three steps, then stopped again. The goose followed her, taking a few steps itself.

"Look, I'm sorry okay! Mr Goose please let us go!" Sylvain finally cries out. "You're a beautiful goose, and I shouldn't have touched you!"

To the Prince's surprise,the trail of people all tumbled to the floor, their line becoming a giant heap.

The woman looked at them for a few moments, before leaning down and picking up the goose. She settled a dark glare on Sylvain, the first true expression he had seen on her face.

"My goose," she frowned at them. "Do not touch."

For the rest of his life, Dimitri could never quite establish what exactly was so funny about the situation: the glaring, the way Sylvain wailed for the pretty lady to forgive him, the baker's son hung his head in desperate apology, or any of the other reactions. Maybe it was just all of it combined with the darkness of his thoughts, the beauty of the peasant woman before him, or the way the woman ignored the pile of humans on the floor to heavily pat her goose on the head while in a completely bland voice saying 'pat pat'. Whatever it was, a smile, and then a snort, and then a little laugh escaped his lips.

And with that sound, witnessed as it was by the Prince's guardian, Byleth Eisner's fate was sealed; she moved into the palace as the Prince's fiancee, goose ever by her side, and by the time of their wedding the couple had fallen very much in love. Over the years Byleth taught Dimitri how to smile, not just for her but for the world, and he taught her the ways of the nobility, not just tolerating but indeed encouraging her love of collecting swords and petting both cats and dogs. Her goose, meanwhile, became their goose, living to a grand age in the height of luxury and never touched by anyone but the Prince and Princess - later King and Queen - again.

You will be pleased to know, of course, that they remained happily in love for all their years, unto their deaths and beyond.


End file.
